The people behind VirtuPlan: When engineering, digital and customer expertise come together
Blog Post | 09.10.2026 | 6 min read | Nuria Criado-Alvarez
When we talk about innovation in energy, we naturally talk about technology: new digital capabilities, new solutions and new ways to optimize increasingly complex energy systems.
VirtuPlan is Hitachi Energy’s custom-engineered digital solution that orchestrates and optimizes distributed energy assets to operate Virtual Power Plants at scale. Combining OT-grade engineering with tailored optimization, it helps customers maximize asset value, reduce operating costs, and unlock new revenue opportunities.
But when I think about VirtuPlan, I think first about the people behind it.
The engineers who understand how energy systems behave in the real world. The consultants who have spent years working alongside customers. The digital specialists who see new possibilities in data and optimization. And the experts who understand how operations, markets and technology need to come together.
Different people. Different expertise. Different perspectives.
VirtuPlan exists because they came together. It started with what our people were seeing
VirtuPlan did not begin with someone deciding to create a new product.
It emerged gradually from years of experience. Our experts were working with customers across projects and markets, including Virtual Power Plants and increasingly complex distributed energy systems. And they kept seeing a similar challenge.
Customers were adding renewable generation, storage and other flexible resources. But connecting technologies was only part of the challenge. Making them work together reliably, under real operating conditions, was something much more complex.
Dr. Meng Cheng, Unit Manager and one of the leading experts behind VirtuPlan, were together with her team in Beijing among those who recognized this early.
They had been working with Virtual Power Plants for many years and had seen different systems and markets evolve. They saw enormous potential, but they also saw the gaps.
As Meng puts it:
Across different markets and systems, we saw how quickly the landscape was evolving, and how much potential there was. But we also saw where things didn’t quite come together.
That observation captures something important about how innovation happens.
Often, it doesn't start with an answer.
It starts with people noticing the same problem and asking why it keeps happening.
Everyone sees a different piece of the puzzle
As the teams gained experience, another insight became increasingly clear.
Jilly-Jingli Zhang, Product Manager for VirtuPlan, was working closely on translating concepts into real-world applications. Her perspective came from seeing the difference between connecting individual technologies and making the complete system perform as intended.
As she describes it:
Connecting the assets was never the hardest part. The real challenge was getting them to behave as one system, under real conditions, with all the constraints that come with it.
That distinction goes right to the heart of the challenge we are trying to solve. An engineer may see a physical constraint. A digital specialist may identify an optimization opportunity. A market expert may see potential commercial value. And someone working closely with the customer may recognize something completely different.
None of us sees the whole picture alone. The value comes when we put those perspectives together.
From experience to a different way of thinking
What I find particularly powerful about the VirtuPlan story is that the solution grew out of this collective experience. The teams did not start by asking: What new tool can we build?
They started by asking: What does the customer actually need?
That difference matters.
Every customer's energy system is different. Their technologies are different. Their operating constraints are different. Their market conditions and business ambitions are different.
Dr. Hao Chang, our Digital Portfolio Sales Manager, brings that customer perspective into a very simple statement:
Customers don’t need another tool. They need something that actually works in their system, under their conditions.
That is a very important principle.
Technology only creates value when it helps solve a real problem.
And understanding that problem requires people who know how to listen, who bring experience from previous projects and who are willing to look beyond their own area of expertise.
When engineering and digital meet
Another person who has played an important role in this journey is Fernando Sada, our global Portfolio & Technolgy Manager.
Fernando's perspective captures something that I believe is increasingly important for our industry: we cannot continue to think about engineering and digitalization as separate conversations.
Our engineering expertise gives us a deep understanding of the physical energy system, how it behaves, where constraints occur and what is required for reliable operation. Digital capabilities allow us to model interactions, explore alternatives and optimize increasingly complex systems.
But the real opportunity comes when these capabilities meet.
As Fernando puts it:
This is where digital and engineering truly come together. Not as separate capabilities, but as a unified approach to solving complex system challenges.
I believe that is one of the things that makes the team behind VirtuPlan special. People are not simply contributing their individual expertise. They are connecting it.
Innovation happens between people
That sounds obvious. In reality, it requires something from everyone involved. It requires curiosity. It requires an engineer to listen to a digital specialist and perhaps rethink an assumption. It requires someone with market expertise to understand a physical constraint. It requires a consultant to bring the customer's voice into a technical discussion.
And sometimes, it simply requires someone to ask the question that nobody else in the room has asked.
When I look at Meng, Jilly, Fernando and Hao, I see four different perspectives on the same journey.
Meng brings the experience of seeing the opportunity and the gaps through years of work with Virtual Power Plants. Jilly brings the reality check: what happens when a concept meets the complexities of a real energy system. Hao keeps the focus firmly on the customer and what will actually work under their conditions. And Fernando represents the connection between two worlds that increasingly need one another: engineering and digital. They are different perspectives. Together, they tell the VirtuPlan story.
What makes me proudest
There is sophisticated technology and engineering behind VirtuPlan. But what makes me proudest is how our people brought it to life.
I'm proud of colleagues like Meng, Jilly, Fernando and Hao, and of the many other experts behind them who contributed their experience, challenged assumptions, learned from our customers and from each other, and were willing to cross traditional boundaries to find a better answer.
Because technology can help us calculate, model and optimize. But technology alone does not know which questions matter most. People do.
People bring experience from the project that did not quite go as expected. They remember the conversation with a customer that changed how they looked at a problem. They connect an idea from one market with a challenge in another. And they bring different pieces of knowledge together in ways that ultimately create something new. That's what I see when I look at the team behind VirtuPlan.
Behind every good plan
Our energy systems will continue to become more distributed, dynamic and interconnected. There will be more technologies, more possibilities and more decisions to make.
To navigate that complexity, I believe we need more than powerful technology. We need the ability to bring different people and different expertise together.
As I have said about the broader challenge:
The energy transition requires systems that can evolve, while remaining stable and coordinated. This is where orchestration becomes critical.
VirtuPlan is one expression of that thinking. And its journey has reminded me of something equally important. No one person had the whole answer.
It took people like Meng, Jilly, Fernando and Hao, together with colleagues across our wider teams, looking at the challenge from different angles and then bringing what they knew together.
Behind every energy system are technologies. Behind every good plan is expertise. And behind VirtuPlan are the people bringing it all together.
